Consumable products with a high content of sugar(s), e.g., sucrose (saccharose), glucose, fructose and/or mixtures thereof, are generally afforded much greater preference by consumers due to their sweetness. However, it is commonly known that a high content of sugar(s) can greatly increase the blood sugar level, lead to the formation of fatty deposits and ultimately result in health problems such as childhood obesity, type II diabetes, and related illnesses. Therefore, it has long been an aim to reduce the sugar content of consumable products to the absolute minimum necessary. One way to reduce sugar content is to replace at least a portion of the sugar(s) with one or more non-caloric high-intensity sweeteners. These non-caloric sweeteners provide sweetnesses significantly higher than those of conventional sweeteners, e.g., sugars such as sucrose or high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS).
However, unlike conventional sugars, many of the non-caloric or low-caloric sweeteners have unpleasant taste features, e.g., off-tastes, aftertastes and/or lingering sweetness. These off-tastes, aftertastes and/or lingering sweetnesses negatively affect the overall flavor of the respective consumable product to which they are added. For example, sucralose, stevioside and cyclamate contribute to negative time-intensity profiles. As another example, acesulfame potassium, saccharin and stevioside, produce a bitter and/or astringent aftertaste. As another example, neotame produces a bitter and metallic off-taste. As another example, glycyrrhinzinic acid ammonium salt produces marked additional aroma impression. Also, some sweeteners, e.g., brazzein, monellin, thaumatin, are not particularly stable under heat. Others, e.g., aspartame, are not stable in all applications. As another example, saccharin may have a very long-lasting sweetening effect, e.g., a lingering sweetness.
Steviol glycosides occur naturally in Stevia spp. or Rubus spp. Examples of these include dulcoside, rebaudiosides A-H, rubusoside, stevioside, suaviosides A, B and G-J. Steviol glycosides are very good sweeteners, but, when used in concentrations necessary for an adequate sweetening effect, steviol glycosides often exhibit a liquorice-like and/or bitter and/or astringent taste impression. Further unpleasant taste impressions may also be observed, e.g., a long-lasting aftertaste or a sweetener like taste profile.
In particular, when used in beverages, e.g., sweet, calorie-free or very low calorie drinks, such sweeteners may exhibit unpleasant secondary taste impressions and/or aftertastes and may lower the sensory acceptance. As such, these negative taste features often require taste masking.
Some taste-masking substances are known. Although many conventional taste-masking substances may partially modify, mask, reduce and/or suppress unpleasant taste features of specific sweeteners or sweetness enhancers, many taste-masking substances are severely limited in their application.
For example, US 2004/0142084 A1 describes alkaline metal hydrogen sulphates as masking agents. One disadvantage of these sulphates is that they considerably increase the acid content in the consumable product.
As another example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,924,017 discloses the use of caffeic acid as masking agent. As is known in the art, one disadvantage of using caffeic acid is that caffeic acid itself has a slightly bitter taste and easily suppresses the sweetness, so that more sweetener would have to be used.
Further, US 2002/0177576 A1 describes the suppression of a bitter taste by nucleotides, for example cytidine 5′-monophosphates (CMPs). The disadvantage of using CMPs is that the strongly polar compounds can only be used in strongly polar solvents. Therefore, CMPs can be used to only a very limited degree in many fat-containing consumable products. Furthermore, the availability of CMPs is severely limited because of their expensive chemical synthesis.
Thus, there is a need for further taste-masking compositions that can modify, mask, reduce and/or suppress unpleasant taste features left by sweeteners or sweetness enhancers without demonstrating the disadvantages of known taste-masking substances.